


Worth A Thousand Pictures

by icarus_chained



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Aftermath, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Kidnapping, Promises, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Ellie, after the Sole Survivor rescues him from Skinny Malone, as Ellie deals with the fact that for a while there she thought she'd lost him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth A Thousand Pictures

"... Ellie? You okay there, sweetheart? Only you've been starin' at this old mug for about ten minutes now, and it's gettin' kinda worrying."

Ellie blinked, startled back to the present. She had an odd sensation, like she was coming back to her body after a while away. It took a minute for her eyes to focus again, and another for her to realise that what they were focused on was Nick's face, and that Nick's face was currently scrunched up in concerned curiosity. She blinked again, and made a little squeaking noise as she straightened up in her chair.

"Uh," she stammered, her head dipping and her hand darting up in a half-gesture as though to hide her eyes. Silly thing to do, really, and she didn't know why she'd done it. She still wasn't all back in her own skin, she guessed. "S-sorry, boss. I don't know ... I got distracted there or something. I'm sorry. What were we saying again?"

Nick didn't answer that. He turned in his seat to look at her, a little frown of worry on his face. He scooted his chair over towards her, leaning down to peer at her face and squint worriedly. Ellie leaned back warily, blinking back at him in turn.

"That's not like you," he said, soft and concerned. "Bein' serious a minute, darlin', are you okay? You're not sick or anything, are ya? Overtired? Hope I'm not overworkin' ya or anything ..."

"No!" Ellie said, maybe a bit too suddenly. One of his eyebrows shot up, and she hurried to explain. "I mean, it's not that. It's okay, boss. It's not that I'm tired or anything, and I'm not sick. I just ..." She paused for a second, wondering if she ought to, and then decided to hell with it. She ploughed on. "I just got thinking, that's all. Been a rough few weeks, you know? I was just thinking about things."

A funny expression came over him at that, and he leaned back a little cautiously himself. He didn't scoot back away, though, wheel his chair back to where it'd come from. He just sat carefully back in his seat, one hand reaching automatically towards his cigarettes. "Ah," he said, and for one lonesome two-letter word, he sure packed a hell of a lot of tone into it. A whole conversation, right there. Ellie nearly laughed at it, and damn near nearly cried as well. 

"I was just thinking," she said. "I don't have too many pictures of you. You never did photograph well." She looked down at her hands, picked carefully at a nail. "There was a while there where I thought I ... I mean, I thought I wouldn't see you again. And I don't ... There's not a lot of pictures, you know? Not a lot of ... things."

To remember you by, she didn't say. Because it wasn't quite that. Not exactly. It wasn't that she wouldn't remember him. The whole rest of her life, if she never saw him again, she'd never for one second forget about Nick. It was just ... It was just the thought. There was no record. No nothing. She'd never _see_ him. Not like this. Not ... not alive and moving and ... and ...

"Oh darlin'," he said, very quietly. He had that look, when she glanced up at him. That face that was trying to smile, that face that was trying not to be sad. That, that was what she meant. Everything he was was in that face, that _moving_ face. If it ever stopped ... "Ellie, sweetheart. I ..." He stopped, shook his head. Put a smile on over it, sad and deliberate. "It's not that big a loss, surely? It's not exactly a face to write home about. You wouldn't miss it that bad, would ya?"

Ellie's hands curled into fists. Something changed in her expression, too. Must have done, because he saw it, and he stiffened warily and ruefully in the face of it. She didn't say anything, though. She didn't get mad. She _thought_ about it, she thought about it real good and hard for a second, but she didn't get mad.

She got sad instead. It always hurt him worse. That wasn't why she did it, that wasn't ever why she did it, but it was true as well. Nick Valentine flinched worse from a sad face than from all the temper and violence in the world.

"... You really think I wouldn't miss you?" she managed softly, and he crumpled altogether. He sagged down like she'd socked him in the chest, and reached out carefully with his left hand to take hers across the desk. She turned her hand in his, gripped it tight. He didn't let go.

"I'm sorry, Ellie," he said, tired and ragged as he rested his weight against the edge of the table. He smoothed his thumb across her skin, the feel of it warm and leathery, both inhuman and the single most comforting sensation in all the world. "I really am. I didn't mean it like that."

Ellie slumped a little herself, squeezing his hand. "I know," she said. She did. He'd meant it as a joke, a deflection. As a hope, even. It wasn't that he thought she wouldn't miss him. It was that sometimes he thought she _shouldn't_ , that it'd be better for her if she didn't, and he half hoped that maybe if he joked about it enough, it'd turn out that way. Not because he wanted it to, she didn't think even Nick Valentine wanted to just be forgotten out of hand, but because ... because he was _stupid_ and he didn't want her to end up hurt some day. Because he thought that sooner or later somebody was going to kill him, that life was just going to work that way, and he didn't want her to have to be sad about it when it happened.

Which _wasn't better_. No matter what Nick thought, no matter what went on in that idiot head of his, him thinking she was better off forgetting him was no better than him thinking she was heartless. Goddamn worse, because at least if she was heartless she'd have an excuse. What sort of soulless person could lo-- Could like Nick and _then_ forget about him, huh? What sort of monster could go and do a thing like that?

But he didn't think that either. Not really. It wasn't his fault. He was just ... he was just stupid like that, that was all. He was just dim, her boss.

Ellie bit her lip. She looked over at him. At his face, all tired and sad over their joined hands. She took it in, all the familiar scuffs and dings, the ragged edges, the scarred lips, the seam around his chin. The hangdog expression she'd know in her sleep, the warm yellow eyes that meant hope and comfort and familiarity, that meant all was right with the world. It wasn't a face that photographed well. It didn't look right when it was still, frozen in a picture or on a ... He looked dead when he was still, or like something that had never been alive at all. He didn't look right in pictures. Never had. She hadn't wanted them, not really. A holovid, maybe, something that showed him moving, that showed him thinking, that showed him _living_ , the personality that shaped those seams, the life that had led to those scars and tears. She might have wanted that. But mostly she wanted ...

She stood up. He blinked at her, his hand tightening instinctively, looking at her all wary and almost frightened. Not that she'd do anything, Ellie thought. That she'd _leave_. That she'd pull her hand back and run away like he'd thought he wanted her to. Which was stupid too. Ellie wasn't going to do that. While she had breath in her body, Ellie wasn't ever going to do that. She wanted ... something else.

She moved around the desk to stand beside him, bringing his hand along with her. He moved to allow it. He took his weight up off the desk, turned his chair so that she'd be in front of him instead of tugging his hand oddly at his side. Ellie smiled crookedly at him. She reached up, the other hand, and hovered it gently beside his face. Not touching yet. He blinked, wary, not understanding where she was going with this. He didn't flinch, though. He didn't mind her hand beside his cheek. She hoped that meant he wouldn't mind the rest either.

"... Can I?" she asked, very quietly and with god knew what in her face. She was being weird, she knew that. She just wasn't sure how much she cared right now. "I know it's all ... but can I? Just for a minute, Nick. Can I?"

He frowned, bemused, but he nodded. He tilted his head, looking up at her, and shrugged as if to say she could do whatever she liked. He'd probably let someone kill him with a shrug like that. She could picture it a hell of a lot easier than she wanted to.

She touched him, instead. Biting her lip, squeezing his hand tight the whole way. She brought her hand to cup his cheek and just ... touched. Held his face in her hand, traced it with her fingers. Making memories, maybe. Holding him in her hand and in her head. Feeling the life beneath his warm, inhuman skin.

It was so familiar, was the thing. He was, he really was. She knew him. She knew his face. She hadn't touched it before, not really, never like this, but she knew it. The ragged tears down the edge of his face, they made sense to her. The little scar in his lip where some chip of rubble had winged him during a firefight. The raised ridge of his chin seam, firm and familiar beneath her thumb. The uneasy twitch of his cheek muscles under her palm, the motion of tiny servos under the skin, something she could sometimes see from the other side if she caught the wrong angle through the tear at the side. Familiar things, all of them. The shape of a face she'd know in her sleep, the shape of a face she never, ever wanted to forget.

She felt herself crying. She felt her eyes prickle, run over, no matter how hard she tried to press her lips together and stop it. She felt the aborted motion of his hand in comfort. She saw the alarm and the terror in his eyes, saw them as much because she knew they were there as because his face allowed them, because she knew _him_ and knew what he would feel enough to see the signs of it even when they didn't show like they would on someone else. She saw the grief, saw the compassion, saw the hint of guilty relief. She saw the little tiny shred of shamed happiness, that someone would care, that Ellie would care _this much_. He didn't want to be feeling it, she knew. She was kinda glad he felt it anyway.

"I'd miss you, Nick," she said, hoarse and smiling through her tears. "I really, really would."

"... I know, doll," he said, with a swallow in his voice and his hand tight around her fingers. He looked up at her, his yellow eyes bright through the blurring of her tears, and held her hand like he'd never let go. "I know you would, Ellie. I know."

That wasn't much, she thought. It wasn't a lot, to know he'd know he was missed when somebody finally shot him. That shouldn't be all there was. It hurt, made something feel ragged and torn inside her chest, but it was ... it was _something_. Not a lot, but not nothing. He'd know she missed him. He'd know ... he'd know she loved him. That day he went out, and didn't come back. He'd know she loved him, and he'd know she'd never forget him. That meant something. That had to count for something, right?

But god, oh god, how she hoped it never had to.

**Author's Note:**

> Random thing that came into my head. I haven't been staring at Nick's face for a while, I swear.


End file.
